


your eyes betray what burns inside you

by erebones



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:04:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: “C’mon, Fe. Please?” He shivers exaggeratedly and rubs his arms. “Two bedrolls are better than one…”“Ugh. Fine.” More eagerly than he wants to admit even to himself, Felix tugs open his bedroll. Even spread out flat on the ground, it’s still hardly wider than a cot and a half, but Sylvain wriggles in next to him gamely, tugging his own bedroll over both of them. Sylvain snakes an arm around Felix’s waist and Felix goes stiff.“What are you—”He chokes on his words before they even leave his mouth. In all the commotion he hadn’t noticed Rue standing up from her place at his feet, apparently driven up by Tineminae’s hounding. As soon as Sylvain gets an arm around Felix, Rue pounces, pinning Tineminae to the ground with one paw and holding her jaws near the otter’s throat as she growls, low and subsonic. Sylvain goes very still.





	your eyes betray what burns inside you

**Author's Note:**

> For Eli. 
> 
> A quick note on daemons. They work slightly differently in this universe than in the original Golden Compass books, mainly in that they can go farther from their people and are often used in battle, though not always. Sylvain's daemon is a red-backed otter (a variation of otter native to northern Fodlan) named Tineminae (rhymes with "anemone" with an "ey" sound at the end), and Felix's daemon is a black wolf named Runagold.

_Red Wolf Moon, 1180_

_Two days’ march from Garreg Mach Monastery_

Felix can’t sleep. Despite the furs he’s bundled in and Rue snoozing lightly at his feet, her every exhale writ into a white puff against the tent’s dark interior, the chill sinks its claws deep into his bones. He tries to lay still for awhile, granting Ashe the basic common courtesy of not twisting and turning every which way and causing a racket; but his body feels more like a corpse than a living thing after only half an hour, stiff-legged and twitching with rigor mortis.

Runagold isn’t exactly helping. She’s asleep, but only just, ears and feet twitching as she dreams. Overhead, the moon is red and full. He can’t see it through the tent fabric, but he can feel it just like she can, heavy and ominous like a ship on fire far out to sea, staining the horizon bloody red. Her instincts pull her to the woods, the fields, to run alongside her brethren and feel the wind in her teeth. Despite his exhaustion, Felix carries a little of that longing in his own brackish blood. Every time sleep draws within reach it darts away again just as quickly, like a fish spooked by the shadow of an inexpert fisherman above the water.

He’s about to call the whole endeavor quits when he hears stamping and rustling at the tent flap and their third ducks in, a little wobbly-legged on nips of Jeralt’s flask. Felix doesn’t approve, and he doesn’t think the Professor would either. But the Professor isn’t here, and when Jeralt offered his watch-companions a bit of booze to keep the blood warm, Sylvain was happy to accept.

Felix props himself up on one elbow to scold him and immediately regrets it—cold air floods into his bedroll and he slithers down again miserably, watching in the vague half-light as Sylvain sheds his boots and bends down to shake Ashe awake by the shoulder.

“Mmhf—Sylvain?”

“Watch change, buddy,” Sylvain stage-whispers. “Bundle up, it’s colder’n Seiros’ tits out there.”

“Mmng. Don’t blaspheme,” Ashe mumbles. He yawns and begins readying himself for the watch, seemingly unbothered by the iron-flecked chill that surged into the tent on Sylvain’s heels. His black-eyed goshawk, Senahine, ruffles her feathers from her perch near the top of the tent and flutters down to rest on Ashe’s glove as soon as it’s buckled into place. “Sleep well, Sylvain.”

As soon as the tent flap falls behind him, Sylvain is ducking down and tugging fruitlessly at the edge of Felix’s bedroll. Felix grumbles audibly and kicks out, the force of which is somewhat dampened by the furs.

“The fuck are you doing?” he hisses. He can see his breath in the air, but his irritation is getting his blood up and he feels a little less chilled.

“It’s bloody cold!” Sylvain hisses back. “I’m not sleeping alone when we could be sharing body heat. Like when we were kids, remember?”

“I don’t,” Felix lies irritably, “and we’re not kids anymore, Sylvain.”

Sylvain sits back on his heels and huffs, finally pulling a squirming, wriggling otter from inside his shirt. Tineminae spills out onto the bedroll and gives Felix’s nose a wet lick before bounding down to his feet to bestow Runagold with kisses and squeaks. Rue, well awake by now, bares her teeth at the other daemon, but there’s no heat in it.

“C’mon, Fe. Please?” He shivers exaggeratedly and rubs his arms. “Two bedrolls are better than one…”

“Ugh. Fine.” More eagerly than he wants to admit even to himself, Felix tugs open his bedroll. Even spread out flat on the ground, it’s still hardly wider than a cot and a half, but Sylvain wriggles in next to him gamely, tugging his own bedroll over both of them. Sylvain snakes an arm around Felix’s waist and Felix goes stiff.

“What are you—”

He chokes on his words before they even leave his mouth. In all the commotion he hadn’t noticed Rue standing up from her place at his feet, apparently driven up by Tineminae’s hounding. As soon as Sylvain gets an arm around Felix, Rue pounces, pinning Tineminae to the ground with one paw and holding her jaws near the otter’s throat as she growls, low and subsonic. Sylvain goes very still.

“Hey, easy—”

There’s a clang from outside, like the butt of a spear against rock. “Oi lads, keep it down,” comes Jeralt’s gruff order. “If you’re going to scuffle, do it out of range of the tents.”

Felix swallows down his instinctive reply and the sharp stab of pride in his gut. Rue’s teeth, shining in the watered-down glimmer of the red wolf moon, are sheathed back into her mouth as she licks Tineminae from belly to throat. The swell of her irritated fondness blooms in his chest like the heat of a summer afternoon and he bites his lip. Behind him in the dark, Sylvain gasps and then laughs a little, as wobbly as his knees had been a few minutes ago.

“Saints alive,” he whispers. “Thought she was gonna tear our throats out.”

“She wouldn’t,” Felix whispers back, a bit wobbly himself. Heat travels through him like wildfire, hot beneath his collar and under his arms. _We wouldn’t._

Rue noses Tineminae’s soft underbelly with a playful snout and the otter rolls over like a child’s toy, twisty-turny and liquid-fast, darting under the furs at their feet. Rue wags her tail just once and follows, flopping down to resume her earlier position.

Sylvain blows out a breath against Felix’s nape. “All good?”

“Yeah.” Felix worries his bottom lip with his teeth and slowly, moving scarcely inch by inch, he covers Sylvain’s hand with his own and presses it to his sternum. Sylvain’s hand is cold, but warms quickly, and Sylvain hums as he spreads his fingers out over Felix’s triphammer heartbeat.

“Told you it would be warmer.” Sylvain’s whisper grazes the back of his neck and goosebumps flare down his spine, not quite a shiver. Their thighs shift together under the furs and Felix swallows a grunt of surprise.

“That better be your hand, Gautier, and you better put it back above my waist,” he snaps. The venom in his voice is lessened by the sympathetic throb of warmth between his legs. _This can’t be happening right now. _

“I’m _sorry_,” Sylvain insists, audibly holding back laughter. Bastard. “It’s just—it’s warm and cozy, and you smell nice—”

“I _what_.”

“It’ll go away, just. Lay still, okay?”

“You’re the one getting handsy,” Felix accuses. His face is on _fire_. But he doesn’t pull away, and he doesn’t let go of Sylvain’s hand, even though his own is beginning to sweat. He closes his eyes against the dimness and tries to ignore the half-chub Sylvain is sporting against his backside. Heat twinges again between his legs and he holds his thighs together tightly, half hoping to stifle it, half chasing the sensation. _Damn him_.

“At least it’s warmer,” Sylvain says after a few minutes. Felix, who had finally been starting to sink into a warmth lethargy, mumbles something indistinct. “Hmm?”

“I will stab you in your sleep,” Felix mutters. “Just… shut up.”

“Okay.”

Sylvain sounds genuinely cowed, and for a moment Felix wonders if he was too harsh with him. But then he feels a soft touch to the back of his neck, under his hair—the slightest press of lips. A small apology. A quiver of warmth runs through him and his toes curl in his woolen socks.

He wonders what would happen if he arched into him. If he craned his neck around and found Sylvain’s cheek with his lips. His mouth. He shivers a little—not with cold, but Sylvain gathers him closer anyway, and Felix can feel the bony point of his straight, perfect nose at the nape of his neck. At their feet, Rue’s tail thumps against the ground, and Tineminae chirrups and wheedles closer into the wolf’s shaggy fur.

Thus ensconced, at long last, Felix drops off into sleep. He wakes several hours later to the weak, watered-down light of early morning slipping through the tent flap as Sylvain tiptoes out, Rue and Tineminae at his heels.

_Bite his ankle for me,_ he thinks to his daemon, half-awake and swaddled in furs that still retain Sylvain’s warmth.

_I will not_, Rue replies tartly. He feels it when she brushes against Sylvain’s leg and licks his hand before darting off into the woods to stretch her legs, a tingle that manifests beneath his breastbone and travels all the way down to his toes.

With great reluctance, Felix crawls out of the nest of furs and begins to ready himself for the day.

><><

_Lone Moon, 1185_

_Half-day’s march from the Great Bridge of Myrddin_

The tail-end of winter’s chill still clings to the scrubby hillsides as Felix forges through the undergrowth south of the Bridge. He can see his breath faintly in the air, and the cold pinches his ears and the tip of his nose, but it’s bearable. For now. He glances over his shoulder to the north, to the burgeoning black clouds that gather beyond the trees’ spindly white branches. A storm is coming. There’s not enough time to make it back to the Bridge.

It’ll be fine. They’ve roughed it in worse weather—Gautier territory in particular is home to blisteringly cold winds and deadly ice storms even into the early weeks of Great Tree Moon. Faerghus in general boasts a long winter, and Felix is accustomed to survival methods when the days’ dwindling hours get down to the wire.

He’s halfway down a thorny slope when a black blur bounds out of the woods to the south and blows past him, clipping his leg as it goes. Rue waits for him to get to the bottom of the shallow ravine before prancing up to him and putting her paws on his shoulders.

“Hello beautiful.” Felix ruffles her ears and kisses her wet nose, smelling cold-cracked wood and day-old snow. “See anything interesting?”

_Rabbits. A fox._ She drops back to her paws and leans against him. Even on all fours, she still reaches his floating rib. A few more pounds of pressure would topple him into the snow, but she knows his limits intimately and doesn’t push too hard. _Not a soul otherwise. Alliance or Empire. _

“Good. Sylvain?”

She lifts her nose to the breeze and sniffs. _Making camp. _

No surprise. Sylvain is even more adjusted to this type of weather than Felix, who spent a considerable amount of his youth in Fhirdiad. Felix hoists his fur hood closer around his neck and settles the sword at his hip. “C’mon, then,” he says, and strikes off along the floor of the ravine. Rue falls in beside him, nose to the ground and occasionally to the wind. Felix catches the scent a few minutes later: woodsmoke. He shivers and ducks his chin further into his scarf. Almost there.

It’s snowing by the time he reaches camp, thick flakes swirling down and collecting his hair, the soft fur of his collar. He scrambles up a steep shale slope, Rue hot on his heels, and near the top a strong gloved hand reaches out and pulls him up the rest of the way. Felix huffs and stumbles a little, not expecting the assistance, and for a moment his face is planted square in the warm, inviting crook of Sylvain’s neck. He breathes in, smells cedar and leather polish and spice, and shoves him back without heat.

“You’re back early,” he remarks, stalking past his scouting partner into the little cave. Rue had found it hours before, little more than an eroded hollow in the side of the ravine, cradled by ancient tree roots to form an earthen hollow safe from the wind and snow. “Find anything?”

“Not a living soul. Minnie fished a scrap of Alliance yellow out of the river upstream, but it was pretty worn out. I don’t think it was recent.”

Sylvain has already ducked back into the cave on Felix’s heels, hunching slightly to avoid hitting his head on the shallow ceiling. His lance leans carefully against the wall, the aforementioned scrap of yellow wound around the shaft. It’s more butter-colored than true yellow—could be anything, in truth—and Felix shrugs off the memory of brilliant golden tabards fluttering in the breeze in the Officer’s Commons as he hunkers down by the spitting fire.

“I didn’t find anything, either.” He strips off his damp gloves and shoves his hands toward the fire, wincing against the bitter heat.

“Here, let me.”

Sylvain, stripped down to his gambeson and quilted trousers, squats beside him and takes Felix’s hands in his own. Felix would complain, but Sylvain is warm and woody-smelling, and his gentle chafing motion brings the blood back into his fingertips readily.

Across the fire, Runagold lays curled in a half-moon shape, watching as Tineminae sniffs along the wolf’s front paws and, with much fuss and chatter, settles herself at Rue’s flank. Rue sniffs her head and Tineminae sniffs back, whiskers bristling. For a moment their noses touch, delicate. Then Tineminae pulls back and sneezes, her entire body shaking with the force of it.

“Bless you,” Felix mutters, curling his fingers into Sylvain’s.

Outside, the wind gusts with increasing ferocity; a dusting of snow has already gathered at the mouth of their little hidey-hole, and the opposite side of the ravine is barely visible through the driving white. Sylvain is apparently content to play house while Felix warms himself. He disappears briefly into the squall and reappears after a few minutes, covered in swiftly-melting beads of ice and dragging a hefty pine branch behind him. He arranges it to cover most of the cave mouth, leaving space for airflow, and hunkers down in companionable silence.

It’s a new thing for him. The willingness to let the quiet speak for itself. Five years of teeth-bared, dug-in rebellion will do that to a man, Felix supposes.

He procures oil and a rag, intending to begin the laborious process of cleaning his sword by dim firelight. But he’s easily distracted. Maybe it’s the whistling wind outside, moaning through skeletal trees whose first green buds were just beginning to flourish; maybe it’s the cold, reluctant to leave his bones despite the fire warming his face. Or maybe it’s just Sylvain, who is mending a tear in his tunic with careful hands, brow furrowed, Tineminae nestled up against his thigh and watching Felix with sleepy black eyes.

Felix quirks an eyebrow at the otter; she blinks in return, whiskers twitching. _What do you want?_

She can’t hear him, of course. That’s not how it works. But he’s not about to ask out loud. At least Sylvain is preoccupied with his mending, an even more difficult task than sword-polishing in the dim light.

His hair is getting long again. A thick lock of it falls over his forehead like a gash—like dark Imperial silk. Felix tightens his grip on the hilt of his blade, thankful for the fire between them. Were it not for that, he would be tempted to reach out and tuck that lock of hair behind his ear, perhaps touch his thumb to the pouty plush of Sylvain’s lower lip—

He blinks and looks away. _Get it together, Fraldarius_. Chest tight, Felix glances back across the fire. Tineminae is still looking at him.

Sensing the beginnings of claustrophobia rising to the back of his throat, Runagold rises from her patch of earth and comes over to him, sticking her nose in his ear. _Relax. It’s nothing you haven’t dealt with before. We are accustomed to this. _

She’s right. The feelings he harbors for his best friend run deep, beyond years of quarreling and miscommunication to a childhood shared in the evergreen forests and hunting trails that crisscrossed the border of Fraldarius and Gautier territory. Before they were old enough to hunt with their elders they had run those trails with their daemons; had rooted in the undergrowth in search of pirate treasure, climbed trees and broken bones and fallen ill together. _Inseparable_.

“Felix,” Sylvain says out of nowhere. Felix startles and nearly slices his thumb open on his own blade. Embarrassing. With a grunt, he packs his supplies away and carefully sheaths his sword.

“What.”

“D’you remember, when we were kids…”

The knot in his chest goes taut again. Had he somehow read Felix’s mind? He turns and pretends to busy himself with combing burrs out of Rue’s thick, dark fur, even though she’s an expert at keeping herself well-groomed. “No, I’ve forgotten all about it.”

“Hff! Let me finish.” Sylvain snaps the thread with his teeth and leans his head back with a throaty sigh, cracking the tension out of his neck. “I was saying, do you remember that time we got lost in the woods? And no one found us til morning?”

“I remember,” Felix says, trying not to smile. Rue’s golden eyes look into his knowingly. “You were scared of the dark. Refused to let go of my hand.”

Sylvain sniffs. “I think you’re exaggerating. What was I saying? Oh, right. Remember how we decided we were gonna find a cozy cave, and build a big campfire, and make our own bows and arrows to hunt and live off the land… live in the woods forever…”

“Hmm.”

Felix remembers it painfully well. There had been no cave, of course—not even so much as a rocky overhang beneath which to find shelter. There had been no fire, either, as neither of them had flint or tinder, and their boyish imaginings had quickly dissolved under the heavy weight of nightfall. They had ended up wandering in circles until it was too dark to see in front of their own faces, and they’d fallen asleep in a bramble thicket, exhausted and frightened. Morning had come early, cold and dew-soaked, with the eager noses of Margrave Gautier’s pack of hunting dogs licking their cheeks.

“We fancied ourselves true adventurers,” Sylvain laughs, folding his arms behind his head. Conveniently forgetting the tongue-lashing they’d received for their exploits, among other things. Felix decides to let him have it. “For a little while, anyway. And look at us now.”

Felix looks around. The cozy cave, the fire; the man sitting across from him, far older and wiser now than the boy he’d first fallen in love with. There’s a new scar cutting across his brow and disappearing into his fire-bright hair, taking a thin vein of eyebrow with it. A trophy from their victory at the bridge.

“I daresay our younger selves would be very impressed with us,” Felix agrees softly. He buries his fingers in Rue’s fur for strength. “Sure you’re not afraid of the dark, Gautier?”

“With you here to protect me?” Sylvain asks with a flash of white teeth. “Of course not.”

Felix snorts. The battle-scarred but well-loved lance leaning against the wall is proof that Sylvain can take care of himself, should the need arise; but the flattery warms his cheeks nonetheless.

“We should sleep,” he says, when the silence stretches out too far. He can’t bring himself to meet Sylvain’s eyes.

“Probably,” Sylvain agrees easily. Everything he does is so _easy_. Or it seems that way. He arcs his arms over his head, stretching, and grumbles when his hands brush the ceiling. “Too bloody tall…”

Felix smirks, and then nearly swallows his tongue as Sylvain tugs his gambeson over his head in one smooth motion. Underneath, his thin linen shirt has come undone at the throat and spills open neatly halfway down his ribs, exposing the firm, hairless planes of his chest. Sylvain is not the sort of redhead that freckles easily; instead he’s got a small collection of moles (beauty marks, he insists) that scatter across his pale body like stars. There’s a particularly large one to the left of his sternum that draws Felix’s traitorous eye as he folds his gambeson cursorily in half and drops it on his pack.

“What are you doing,” Felix says flatly. Sylvain, in the midst of plucking his shirt out of his trousers—conveniently baring a swathe of stomach and faint ginger-gold hair south of his navel—casts him a look of put-upon surprise.

“Getting ready for bed, of course. Just following orders.”

Felix snorts and looks away. “Of the two of us I think _you_ are the one more suited for that task.”

“What, bedding down?” Sylvain snarks. “Or giving orders?”

The sauce in his voice boils over, bringing heat to Felix’s cheeks as surely as if he’s standing over a cookpot. “I was referring to the latter,” he mumbles. He feels like he’s grasping desperately at a delicate silk thread that’s pulling forever out of his reach. “Your leadership on the field is unquestionable.”

“Well.” Sylvain sounds… properly off-kilter, for once. Felix would feel more smug about it if he weren’t much the same way. He hunkers down and begins tugging his boots off. “Must be because of my dashing good looks. People can’t help but pay attention to me.”

“That’s certainly true,” Felix mutters.

Sylvain looks up from his bootlaces. “Pardon?”

“Nothing.” Felix gives Rue a pat and resigns himself to his fate. With clumsy fingers he tugs off his own boots and belts, laying his swords carefully at the side of the cave—far from the fire, but within reach should he need to grab for them in a hurry. He’s laying out his bedroll with uncharacteristic tidiness when he feels a large hand descend on his shoulder. He stiffens.

“Want help with your chainmail?” Sylvain asks, perfectly courteous.

“I can handle it.”

“I know you can, but it’s easier with a squire, isn’t it?” He grins and gives a half-bow, limbs still stifled by the close quarters. “Allow me.”

Felix can’t help but huff a quiet laugh. “I pity the fool who took you as his squire.”

Sylvain sniffs haughtily. “Glenn _adored_ me, thank you very much.”

Felix hums suspiciously, but sits up on his knees to give Sylvain access. The laces on either side are fiddly, and while he’s used to attending to himself in the absence of such a luxury as a squire of his own, he can’t deny that an extra set of hands has its uses. He folds his hands behind his head and tries not to hold his breath.

Sylvain is gentle, even more so than required. When Felix glances at him, his face is very near, bowed in concentration and furrowed at the brow as he picks the stubborn leather gusset apart enough to haul the garment over Felix’s head.

“There.” Strangely tender, Sylvain brushes a few escaped strands of Felix’s hair back into place. His hand is large and warm, and lingers by Felix’s cheek as if unsure. “See? That wasn’t so terrible.”

“I take it back,” Felix murmurs, throat dry as dust. “You would make an excellent squire.”

“_Now_, perhaps,” Sylvain laughs. They have no armor stand, but he folds Felix’s chainmail in half and settles it with care on top of his own gambeson, away from the dirt. “I was a terror, in my squire days.”

“How self-aware of you,” Felix says dryly.

“I’ve grown!” Sylvain puts a hand to his breast in a gesture so uncannily like Lorenz that Felix’s breast thrums with laughter.

“So you have.” His eyes flick to Sylvain’s shoulders, comfortably broad and straining the seams of his shirt. “So you have.”

Sylvain’s eyes seem to glimmer in the firelight, golden and knowing, but Felix has already turned to put his bedroll to rights, hands trembling faintly with pent-up nerves. He tries to breathe normally, and feels like a fool for having to concentrate on such a basic task. _What have you done to me, Gautier._

He wants to reach for Rue again, to glean some comfort from her coarse fur, but she has taken up her post at the mouth of the cave, unbothered by the occasional draught that slips in through the pine boughs. She blinks at him, recognizing his plight, but does not come to soothe him. Between her front paws, Tineminae is curled in a ball and playing with something—a river stone, perhaps, or one of last season’s horse chestnuts not yet rotted from its casing. They are comfortable together. At ease. Felix’s chest burns with envy.

He knows their daemons are just a reflection of their own selves, the parts they are too afraid to look at directly—their ugliest shadows torn forcibly into the light by the will of the goddess. But that hardly makes it easier to look Sylvain in the face and tell him what secrets he carries in his heart.

“Do you think we’ll be snowed in tomorrow?” Sylvain asks as he sets his own bedroll out beside Felix’s. There’s just enough room for them to stretch out side by side, their feet toward the cave mouth and their daemons, their heads toward the rear where the earthen roof descends into a tangle of roots and last years’ leaves. Side by side will be a bit of a tight fit, and Felix silently longs for the roominess of the military tents they sleep in on the march.

“Perhaps,” he says, settling down into the furs. He sends out one last silent plea for Rue to curl up at his head. She ignores him.

“Fancy having to dig our way out. Pity we didn’t think to bring snowshoes on this little scouting mission, eh? It’ll be a hell of a slog back to the Bridge.” There’s a bit of rustling and huffing as Sylvain gets comfortable. Unlike Felix, he isn’t completely subsumed by his bedroll—the furs only come up to mid-chest, and his arms are folded comfortably behind his head as if he were reclining on a beach somewhere instead of holed up in a burrow like a rat, avoiding winter’s last dregs. “D’you think the Professor and the others are worried about us? We’re probably not the only ones who got caught in the storm. Hopefully Ashe and Dedue are all right—”

“_Sylvain_.” The name leaves his tongue like the lash of a whip. Seiros help him, if he weren’t in love with the bastard he’d have strangled him ten times over by now. Sylvain gives a gentle cough.

“Sorry. Just trying to keep your spirits up.”

Felix blinks at the earthen roof overhead, trying to parse those words. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, no need to apologize, I was just—”

“Not like that, you idiot. What do you mean, keeping my spirits up?”

“Well, I dunno. You seem a bit off.” Sylvain hesitates. Felix isn’t looking at him, but he can picture the stupid expression on his face, like he’s trying to pass gas and can’t quite manage it. “I thought maybe the… the battle. At the Bridge…”

Felix shuts his eyes. It was true, that had been a surprisingly difficult battle, in part because they’d had to face some of their old classmates. Thankfully Lorenz had been persuaded to see reason, but von Aegir…

Felix hadn’t known him well, but he can still hear the ringing cry he’d given as Dedue cut him down from his horse. He’d been far enough away to miss the worst of it, but Sylvain had been right there, on horseback himself, lance still streaked with Imperial crimson.

“I’m all right,” Felix says after what feels like an age. The weight from before that lingered between them, sucking all the air out of the admittedly small room, has dissolved, and he breathes easy as he slips a hand from his bedroll to find Sylvain’s, now lying on his stomach on top of the furs. Despite the wind whipping past outside, he can still hear the faint intake of breath as his fingertips meet Sylvain’s skin. “Are you?”

“This is just the beginning, isn’t it,” Sylvain says instead of answering. “I thought maybe the others had fled or defected, or at the very least were holed up in their own estates minding their business, but. She recruited them. Every last one.” His hand tightens around Felix’s, nearly to the point of pain, but Felix doesn’t complain.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Felix agrees calmly. This, at least, is familiar territory. Ironically easier for him to discuss the deaths of their former classmates than the way his heart leapt in his chest when Sylvain looked at him across the fire earlier. Fickle, fetid heart… “But we’ll see it through.”

“We’ll see it through,” Sylvain echoes, sounding a mite more relaxed. His grip softens but does not release him, thumb turning gentle sweeps along the cusp of Felix’s palm. Then he adds, deadly serious, “I won’t let you fall.”

This time, Felix doesn’t have to ask for clarification. He weaves his fingers in with Sylvain’s and holds on tight. “Nor I you.”

“I believe you.” Sylvain’s voice is subdued but warm; it seems to trickle through Felix like liquid caramel, golden and sticky-sweet. His breath catches a little in his throat, but he doesn’t speak. Felix wonders if he’s thinking about the conversation they’d had the week before, reaffirming the silly bond they’d made as boys. Not so silly now.

Something hovers on the tip of his tongue, unspoken, but Felix doesn’t get a chance to find out what it is—a sharp gust of wind catches their makeshift door quite suddenly, ripping the evergreen bough from the mouth of the cave, and a swirl of white surges into their little haven, sending embers scattering across the floor. They both scramble upright, fighting their way out of their bedrolls, as Rue and Tineminae shake the sparks from their fur. Coughing and cursing against the smoke in his eyes, Felix stumbles to the mouth of the cave and sucks in a frigid, wet breath of clean air.

“It’s fine! It’s fine,” Sylvain hollers. He sweeps the lingering coals out the cave mouth with his sock feet and fumbles for his own cloak, weatherproofed and hanging off a coil of root. “Here, help me put this up.”

“Should have brought a tent,” Felix mutters, but he grabs the cloak’s other edge and together they manage to fasten it in place across the mouth of the cave. The wind still slips its clever fingers around the edges, but at least the snow isn’t howling directly into his face anymore. Still, Felix shivers violently in his thin shirt and deeply regrets taking his boots off as his toes begin to numb in their damp socks.

“Well! So much for a fire.” Breathing heavily in the dark, Sylvain pats around with his hands, trying to sort the ruffled mess of their bedding. “Guess we’ll have to go the old-fashioned way and huddle for warmth.”

Felix snorts. “Always looking for a warm body, that’s you.”

“Hey! At least I have good reason.” Though he can’t really make out his face, the sly tilt of Sylvain’s smile is etched into Felix’s brain as he adds, “I happen to know for a fact you get cold easily.”

Felix harrumphs and crouches down, hunting for the mouth of his bedroll with stiff hands. But he is intercepted—Sylvain grabs at the damp material and begins shaking and rustling around, no more than a pale grey smear against the black of the cave’s interior. Rue presses herself to Felix’s side and gives a low, irritable whine.

“Relax, I’m just getting things set. Wouldn’t do to freeze anyone’s toes off tonight if we can help it.” Sylvain practically resonates good cheer, an incredible feat given their cozy hideaway has been forcibly ripped from their grasp; but it’s soothing regardless. His indefatigable nature persisting, even now, in the middle of war and winter. Felix sighs and hunkers down, burying his fingers in Rue’s fur for warmth.

“Are you done yet?”

“Yes, actually. Come here.” Sylvain flings out a flailing hand and accidently catches Rue’s shoulder. He yanks his hand away, but it’s too late—Rue and Felix both go still, feeling the reverberating intensity of Sylvain’s touch like a blade to the throat. “Sorry, I—” Sylvain begins, a little strangled. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine.” Felix takes a steadying breath, not that it helps much, and reaches out for him in turn. His fingers find the soft, worn edge of Sylvain’s sleeve and his shoulder underneath, warm and broad and sturdy. “Let’s get to bed, I’m freezing.”

Apparently flustered into silence, Sylvain quietly guides him to their doubled bedrolls, laid one on top of the other and laced at the edges. It feels familiar, though he can’t say exactly why; but that’s a question for later, when his heart isn’t racing and his stomach isn’t full of inconvenient butterflies. Felix draws his knees toward his chest, quaking even underneath the furs. Then the long, lean line of heat that is Sylvain presses up against his spine, and he begins to soften.

“All right?” Sylvain mumbles. The careful press of his hand to Felix’s waist feels like a brand burned into his flesh. Marking him. Making him _his_.

“Yeah.” His throat is suddenly very dry.

Then something in his head clicks into place, and he remembers. Five years ago, give or take a few months, on a drill march with Captain Jeralt. They were so much younger then, he thinks, a little sadly—how easy it had been to lay together, all elbows and knees, the warm edge of buried feelings just starting to germinate under the permafrost. Now he feels the weight of Sylvain at his back like a spell about to burst forth from his lips, the tingle of gathered magic hollowing his bones and squeezing his insides with nerves. It would be so easy to reach back, tangle his fingers in Sylvain’s hair. Wrench him forward to taste his lips. So easy, and yet the most difficult thing in the world.

“I can hear you thinking,” Sylvain murmurs, his voice almost lost to the howl of wind outside. His thumb does a shy little circuit of Felix’s floating rib. Every word puffs warm breath against Felix’s nape, and the barren, frost-riddled earth cracks a little more. “You should try to sleep. The trek back to the Bridge is going to be tough tomorrow with all this snow.”

Felix scrambles for an acceptable response, flailing in the dark. “Is that a wisecrack about my height?” he snaps, or tries to—Sylvain’s fingers have spread to grasp his waist securely, and the careful strength of his hand takes Felix’s breath away, rendering his barbed comment a mere whisper.

“What? No, of course not.” Sylvain sounds genuinely panicked, and his grip softens, like he’s on the verge of pulling away. And Felix can’t have that. With half-numb fingers he fumbles for Sylvain’s hand and clings to it once he’s found it, his thumb tucked against the tender meat of Sylvain’s palm. His hand is sweaty, Felix notices. Somehow that tiny detail is grounding. Comforting. “I would never—”

“Yeah, I know. ‘Cause I would cut out your kneecaps if you did.”

Sylvain shivers with laughter and presses his face to Felix’s nape, imprinting the mark of his smile there. It wrings a little laugh out of Felix, too, wet and inconsolable. “Felix…”

“_What_. I thought you wanted to go to sleep.”

“I do,” Sylvain murmurs, contrite. His hand pets along Felix’s side again, and this time his fingers turn inward, nails scratching lightly through his shirt. Felix shivers, extending one leg behind him to press his sock foot to Sylvain’s shin.

_That better be your hand, Gautier, and you better put it back above my waist._

He wants to laugh, or maybe scream—his younger self had been so angry all the time, more than he is even now, so defensive of showing any sign of weakness. In this moment he _wants_ to be weak, more than he wants anything else. Just for once, one blissful heartbeat, surrender himself entirely into hands he trusts. _Sylvain_’s hands.

He tries to tell himself that this is ill-fated. Doomed to failure. Tries to pretend that Sylvain is just the same as he was five years ago, empty-headed and empty-eyed, chasing cheap thrills and ignoring Felix in favor of the girl of the hour.

But five years is a long time. And Felix decides, all at once, that he is tired of waiting.

Sylvain’s hand is still within easy reach. He takes his wrist in a gentle grip, and Sylvain succumbs easily, letting him tug his hand up to his mouth. Felix brushes a kiss to his knuckles, then the bony knob of his thumb, the webbing between gone tough and calloused from years of wielding a lance. Behind him, Sylvain sucks in a sharp breath and presses his nose to Felix’s hair.

“Tell me to stop,” Felix whispers against his palm.

“What if,” Sylvain says, shakily, “I don’t want you to stop?”

“Then I won’t.”

Half-blind in the darkened cave, Felix presses more kisses to Sylvain’s hand—his wrist, his knuckles, the tips of his fingers. Sylvain’s breath grows ever shakier against the back of his neck. And then, carefully, like he’s expecting to be bitten, Sylvain slips a finger into Felix’s mouth.

The fragile edge of tenderness is honed to deadly sharpness and Felix moans, flinching back as an electric spark seems to light its way down his body. He shivers and presses his tongue between Sylvain’s first two fingers, his own hand a death grip around Sylvain’s wrist. At his back, Sylvain’s chest heaves like a blacksmith’s bellows, and one leg presses forward until it’s nestled knee to knee between Felix’s calves.

“Yeah,” Sylvain breathes, hot and humid at the shell of his ear. “Like that…”

Felix feels like he might splinter and break apart, nothing left of him but shards of metal in Sylvain’s grasp. But he remains, somehow, a hot and coiling wire trembling against the hot brick oven of Sylvain’s chest. He releases Sylvain’s wrist with a wet gasp and reaches back to tangle a fist in his soft quilted trousers.

“Sylvain—”

“How long?” Sylvain whispers. His hand, now released, travels down Felix’s throat, bypassing straining buttons and heaving ribs to burrow playfully in the loosened fabric of his shirt. Pulling it free of his belt is easy, and then his hand is there on Felix’s belly, skin to skin, the damp of cooled saliva dragging an agonizing trail across his navel. “Felix, please. I want to know.”

“How—how long?” His head feels lighter than air, liable to float away. Desperate to be grounded, Felix cranes his neck and Sylvain is there to meet him, forehead to forehead, noses brushing as they fill the little cave with the warmth of their huffing breaths.

“How long have you felt this way?”

Felix’s laugh is bitter and strangled, but the poison is eased by the tender stroke of Sylvain’s knuckles along his hipbone. “I don’t know. Since before I knew what it meant. Since before I was old enough to feel—_this_.”

Sylvain tears his hand away from Felix’s hip. He wants to cry, to complain—but it finds the curve of Felix’s jaw instead, holds him in place as Sylvain kisses him. It’s sloppy and askew, but his lips are soft—so much softer than he imagined—and the shy, wet swipe of his tongue forgives a multitude of untold sins. Felix’s mouth drops open and he licks back. And they are kissing open-mouthed, twisted and straining as Felix shakes and shakes and does not fly apart.

“Do you remember,” Sylvain gasps, “when we were younger, still at school—the tent—”

“I remember.” Felix huffs a disbelieving laugh and tightens his grip on Sylvain’s trousers, hauling him closer. The lump at his backside is unsurprising, and yet it punches the breath from his lungs regardless. “I wanted you then.”

“I know.” It should sound smug, coming from Sylvain, but his voice is a wreck and it rather ruins the self-assured effect. “I wanted you, too.”

“You said I… smelled good.” If Felix weren’t already flushed with arousal and exertion, he would certainly be blushing now. Sylvain’s thigh quests higher and he spreads his legs for him, letting out a little cry at the blunt, unstinting pressure against his cunt. Finally, _finally_—

“It was true.” Sylvain laughs a little, unselfconscious as he bites a kiss beneath Felix’s ear. “It’s _still_ true. I want to…” He trails off to nibble a tender mark at the outset of his throat, just at the cusp of his collar. “I want to _eat you up_.”

Felix buries his cry in the bedding and grinds down on Sylvain’s thigh. Even through two pairs of trousers, the ache of arousal is satisfied and stymied in equal measure—he could rut against Sylvain for hours, he thinks, and never find release, but the sweet unending _agony_ of it would be exquisite. He can feel his smalls growing damp and twisted as Sylvain marks his neck, and he wonders whether he’ll survive the inevitable peak of this encounter.

“I would like,” Sylvain begins, strangely stilted and courteous in the heat of the moment. His fingers pluck at Felix’s belt, intentionally useless. “Please—”

Felix nods, shoves his hand to his trousers to assist. It takes a moment—he wears no shortage of belts to support the blades he carries—but at last Sylvain has them open and is laughing, no longer shy, as he presses the heel of his palm to Felix over his smalls.

The reality of it is more than Felix was prepared for. He arches back, forward, into that delicious uncompromising pressure, and sobs into the crook of his arm as orgasm overtakes him in a rush. He can’t breathe, he can’t see, he can’t speak or think—he is shaking, every fiber of his being strained and shivering as Sylvain holds him close, murmuring something in his ear that he can’t understand.

As the blood pounding in his ears begins to fade, he can hear it: _easy, easy, I have you sweetheart,_ and variations thereof, all delivered in a taut, rough-edged tenor that feels deliciously like fingernails scraping softly down his back. He tips his head back blindly and finds Sylvain’s smile with his own.

“You’ve been holding onto that for a long time, haven’t you,” Sylvain whispers. From anyone else, in any other tone, it would be a jibe, a careless _well that didn’t take long, did it. _But Felix knows what he means. And anyway, he’s right.

“Longer than I realized, I think.” Heat still throbs in him; but the painful, wild edge has been buffed away, and he arches into Sylvain’s body with languid familiarity. Sylvain kisses him, his lips and his chin, drawing careful spirals over Felix’s smallclothes. “Will you… I want…”

Sylvain bites at his lower lip and grins. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific, love.”

Felix fits his hand over Sylvain’s and grinds against the combined weight. “More of this. And—you…”

“More of me?” Sylvain purrs. He ruts gingerly against Felix’s backside and Felix hums, reaching back to encourage him with a hand to his hip.

“Open your trousers, Gautier.”

“_Bossy_. I like it. C’mere then, sweetheart.”

Easy as anything, Sylvain pulls Felix back into his body, his solid warmth. He takes the brunt of Felix’s weight, but not quite all of it—he can feel Sylvain fumbling with his fly, and Felix takes his lead, kicking his leggings and smalls down to his knees. It’s still cold in the cave but unbearably hot beneath the blankets, and he lays there half-exposed with the furs around his waist, panting harshly into the frigid air.

It strikes him suddenly that he’s not sure what Rue and Minnie are getting up to. What _do_ daemons do when their humans are getting up to… His brain trails off, unsure how to classify it, and he decides he’d rather not know.

“There,” Sylvain sighs, at his ear again. He gravitates there it seems, a bee to honey, smearing clumsy kisses to the slope of his neck. Sylvain slides a hand between Felix’s thighs and purrs to find damp curls instead of cotton. “Hello, sweet.”

Felix shivers and squirms into his touch. He’s heard Sylvain toss the endearment around as easy as breathing, but never has he heard it uttered with such perfect, clear sincerity. “Harder,” he snaps, red to the tips of his ears—he’s envisioned similar scenarios a hundred times, and yet somehow he’d never imagined having to give direction. It’s not an unpleasant prospect.

“Inside?” Sylvain whispers, hovering.

“Please.”

Sylvain obeys, wordless but for the harsh rasp of his breath in Felix’s ear. One finger and then two, nicely snug beside each other. Felix’s eyes roll back in his head. He can feel the warm, damp tip of Sylvain’s cock against his thigh. He _wants_ it. Not inside—not yet—he’s never. And yet. The idea has him fisting the bedding in both hands and shuddering, ankles locked together, as Sylvain’s clever hand coaxes another surging orgasm out of him.

“That’s it. Listen to you.” Sylvain’s voice is marveling, harsh as woodsmoke in the lungs. He pushes his cock against Felix, little haphazard pushes like he can’t help himself, and Felix reaches between his legs to play with it. “_Fe—_”

“C’mon then,” Felix pants. “I know you’ve thought about it. Fuck me like you mean it, Gautier.”

Sylvain laughs, shaky and incomposed, but he grabs at his bony hips and holds Felix still as he presses his dick between Felix’s thighs. “Like that?”

“Yes—yes. Sylvain—”

“Oh, it’s _Sylvain_ now, is it?” He finds the divot below Felix’s hipbone and presses his thumb to it, holding him steady as he rocks back and forth between his legs, agonizingly slow. He nuzzles the straining arc of his throat, mouth open and slack as he moans and snaps his hips forward, harder. “Felix… Fe, please—”

Felix whines and arches back, his breath forming damp beads of moisture in the furs as he twists his wrist and thumbs the head of Sylvain’s cock. Everything is slick and hot to the touch—his fingers slip along Sylvain’s length and back again, sort of roughly petting him. His hand is no longer cold, but still clumsy; orgasm has made a limp ragdoll of him. He grinds his forehead into the bedroll and bites out a sharp cry, hair sticking to his forehead, as Sylvain digs his fingers into his thigh and his teeth into his shoulder at the same moment.

He doesn’t feel Sylvain’s peak because he’s too busy having his own. He shouts aloud, loud enough to shake the roots of the trees that cradle them—it’s all he can do, over and over again, as his toughened body is pummeled into so much putty from the inside out.

When he finally subsides, his throat is raw and there’s a pleasant ache in his thighs. A sharper, fading pain in his shoulder. He wonders if Sylvain drew blood.

“Goddess,” Sylvain gasps. His voice is torn to shreds as he shoves his forehead to Felix’s nape like an overgrown cat and paws at his hip. Made clumsy, too, and weak. Felix reaches back and fumblingly laces their hands together.

“All right?” he whispers, suddenly unsure of what to say. All sense has been stricken from his head—he feels that if Sylvain were to pull away he truly _would_ shatter, this time with no one to hold his pieces together.

At his back, Sylvain moans and mumbles something incoherent before pulling at him—his hand, his hip, turning them both until Sylvain is on his back and Felix is sprawled across him like a contented cat. His toes curl in the furs as he finally meets Sylvain’s mouth head-on. They kiss slowly, deeply, Sylvain’s jaw pinned in place by Felix’s hand.

“Yeah,” Sylvain mumbles. Still kissing him. His lips form the words against Felix’s cheek: “More than all right. You?”

He feels like he’s fighting the heady fuzz of a couple glasses of wine as he attempts to take stock. “Mm. Good.” He shuts his eyes against the dark, nose tucked beneath Sylvain’s stubbled jaw. No time to shave out on patrol. For some reason that detail strikes him like hammer to anvil, and he comes a little more awake. “Bit damp.”

Beneath him, Sylvain shakes with silent laughter. “Sorry. Not the best place for, uh. Keeping things tidy.”

Felix thinks longingly of his last clean handkerchief, tucked away in his pack. The handful of feet it will take to crawl across the cavern floor and fetch it, bare-arsed to the unforgiving chill, does not seem worth the effort.

“Hmm.” Sylvain pushes the hair out of Felix’s face and presses a kiss to his brow. A tender gesture he wasn’t expecting. “I can think of a way to clean up, actually, but you may not like it.”

Felix stifles a yawn against Sylvain’s chest. “As long as it doesn’t involve scrubbing myself with snow, I’m open to suggestions.”

Sylvain laughs, more of a bark than a human sort of sound, and he grazes Felix’s ribs with his fingers in retaliation. “Believe me, I know better than to suggest _that_. I’ll need more room, though.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“Fine!” Quickly, almost playfully, Sylvain turns his head and licks at the sweat gathered on Felix’s temple. Too sluggish to pull away in time, Felix lets him, and then burns with heat at the implication. “My tongue is good for more than just kissing, you know.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Felix mutters, even as he trembles. “All right.”

“Really?”

“Just… don’t make a bigger mess.” Felix rolls off him and makes a face at the sticky, liquid slide between his thighs. “If possible.”

“No promises,” Sylvain purrs, and dives beneath the furs.

He has to unlace one side of their makeshift bedroll to fit, but Sylvain is quickly ensconced between Felix’s legs, brushing soft kisses to the abused skin. Felix isn’t sure whether he’s warming him up to it or if he’s already forgotten his task—either way, it feels amazing, so he’s not about to complain.

Sylvain’s tongue is soft and thorough as it travels up his thighs, cleaning him of Sylvain’s mess and his own before licking right at the center of him, as methodical with Felix as he is with his weaponry. Soft and wrung-out, Felix lays his head back and sighs gratefully into the utter dark. Another orgasm seems far out of reach, but he’s content to lie here and pet Sylvain’s hair as he licks him clean.

At last Sylvain withdraws, wiping his mouth. It’s too dark to see properly, but Felix reckons he’s smiling, as self-satisfied as a cat with his cream. “How’s that?” he murmurs, insinuating himself back into Felix’s arms.

“Better,” Felix allows. He pillows his cheek on Sylvain’s head. Poufy, ridiculous head. Full of fluff and well-hidden brilliance. “But next time had better be in a bed, Gautier.”

“Noted.” Sylvain pauses on a quick breath. “You want a next time, then?”

Felix growls. “Do I look like one of your one-and-done girls?”

“No! I just. I didn’t want to assume. Fe…”

He leans up, which isn’t difficult to do—bloody tall bastard—and kisses Felix right on the mouth. Felix isn’t as put off by the taste as he thinks he could be.

It’s pitch dark, but when he draws away to hover not even an inch away from his face, their noses brushing gently, Felix fancies he can see the gleam in Sylvain’s eye as he whispers, “If you want me, I’m yours. ’Til the end. You should know that.”

Felix’s next breath constricts in his chest, thorny and bittersweet. “Truly?”

“Swear it on my life.” Another tangy, salt-edged kiss. “On _your_ life, come to that.”

“How noble of you.” Despite the sarcasm laced into his words, Felix grips him by the back of the head and holds him still for a kiss, firm and unyielding. Sylvain succumbs to the pressure, eager to follow his lead. Their tongues well together and Felix sighs at the gentle warmth, the rough slide of Sylvain’s calloused hand along his ribs. “I won’t be able to give you away once I have you,” he confesses.

“Convenient, as I am happy to be kept by you for as long as you can stand me.” Sylvain’s voice is light, but Felix knows him well enough to hear the undercurrent of fear.

“Then we’ll die together after all,” he murmurs, resting their foreheads together. “How prescient of us.”

“And live together,” Sylvain adds. He slides an arm around Felix’s waist and holds him fast, lips finding his, too brief and yet so sweet Felix doesn’t think he could stand more than a millisecond of it. “That’s the important part, isn’t it. We live.”

If Felix only hums agreement, if his eyes sting and his cheeks grow wet, Sylvain is kind enough—or blind enough—not to say anything. And despite the raw and open ground of his chest, damp earth exposed to sunlight for the first time in years, he finds himself dropping off to sleep with Sylvain’s heartbeat under his hand and their feet tangled together in the furs.

He doesn’t even think of their daemons ’til morning. He wakes slowly to watery spring light spilling across the cavern floor, illuminating Rue’s dark fur in shades of reddish-brownish-black. She’s curled into a little ball, flecked with snowflakes, and in the center of her protective spiral, Tineminae is just a patch of red fur drowned in Rue’s shaggy warmth.

He looks down. Sylvain is still asleep, lazy sod, red hair tumbled every which way, lips still swollen and kiss-bitten from the night before. Felix puts his hand to his shoulder, pressing the bruise Sylvain left there like a promise.

_If you want me, I’m yours. ’Til the end. _

Felix will hold him to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on twitter @rachebones!! I rt a lot of gay fe3h and doodle some of my own as well


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